XIV. 1793. CHAP. had been graced, were involved in the general proscription. The exquisite tapestry of the Gobelins was publicly burned, because the mark of the crown and arms of France was on it. All the sculpture and statuary which could be found on tombs, in churches, palaces, or chateaus, was destroyed, because it savoured of royalty and aristocracy. New schools, on a plan originally traced out by Condorcet, were directed to be formed, but no efficient steps were taken to insure their establishment; and education, for a number of years, almost entirely ceased through all France.* One establishment only, the Polytechnic School, dates from this melancholy epoch. During this fearful night, the whole force of the human mind was bent upon the mathematical sciences, which flourished from the concentration of its powers, and were soon illuminated by the most splendid light. In the general havoc, even the establishments of charity were not spared. The revenues of the hospitals and humane institutions throughout the country were confiscated by the despots whom the people had seated on the throne; their domains sold as part of the national property. Soon the terrible effects of the suppression of all permanent sources of relief to the destitute became apparent. Mendicity advanced with frightful steps; and soon the condition of the poor throughLiancourt, out France became such, as to call forth the loudest lamenx. 322, 323. tations from the few enlightened philanthropists who still followed the car of the Revolution. 1 1 Rapport sur la Men dicité, par ii. 20. Lac. Deux Amis, xii. 24. In the midst of the general desertion of the Christian faith by the constitutional clergy, it is consolatory to have, for the honour of human nature, one instance of an opposite character to recount. Gregory, Bishop of Blois, arrived in the Convention he was pressed to imitate the example of Gobel. He ascended the tribune; and, while the Assembly expected to hear him abjure like the rest, * "Sous le Règne de la Terreur, les collèges et les écoles étaient absolument abandonnés : les pères et les mères ne songeant qu'à mettre leurs jours en sûreté, étaient occupés seulement de leur propre conservation."-Deux Amis, xii. 2. XIV. 1793. he said "My attachment to the cause of liberty is well CHAP. known; I have given multiplied proofs of it. If the present question relates to the revenues of my bishopric, I resign them without regret. If it is a question of religion, that is a matter beyond your jurisdiction, and you have no right to enter upon it. I hear much of fanaticism and superstition. Reflect on what the words mean, and you will see that it is something diametrically opposite to religion. As for myself, Catholic by conviction and sentiment, priest by choice, I have been named by the people to be a bishop; but it is neither from them nor you that I hold my mission. I consented to bear the mitre at a time when it was a crown of thorns: they tormented me to accept it; they torment me now to extort an abdication, which they shall not tear from me. Acting on sacred principles which are dear to me, and which I defy you to ravish from me, I have endeavoured to do good in my diocese: I will remain a bishop to do so, and I invoke for my shield the liberty of worship." This courageous speech produced great astonishment in the Convention, and he was denounced Nov. 13. at the Jacobins for having wished to "christianise" the Revolution; but Robespierre, who was in secret averse to these scandalous scenes as likely to discredit it, did not Jacobins. support the clamour, and he escaped being sent to the 1793. guillotine.1 Hist. Parl. al des xxx. 193, 194. Jour Nov. 13, of 52. Meanwhile the Jacobins were bestowing every imaginable honour on the memory of Marat, who, beyond either Apotheosis Voltaire or Rousseau, became the object of general adora-Mart. tion. Then was seen how much the generous but mistaken devotion of Charlotte Corday had in reality strengthened the power of the tyrants. The fruit of crime is never salutary; for it shocks the feelings, on which alone real amendment can be founded. Marat's bust was placed in the Convention, and on an altar in the Louvre, with the inscription" Unable to corrupt, they have assassinated him." He became, literally speaking, an object of worship; great numbers of victims were sacrificed to his 1 XIV. 1793. CHAP. memory; and the monster who had incessantly urged the cutting off of two hundred and eighty thousand heads was assimilated to the Saviour of the world. A couplet was composed by a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the section Marat, the burden of which was-"O sacred heart of Jesus! O sacred heart of Marat !" On the 21st September, his apotheosis took place with great pomp. His bust was soon to be seen in every village of France; and, on the 14th November, a decree of the Convention, proceeding on a report of the younger Chénier, was passed, directing his ashes to be transferred to the Pantheon, where they were accordingly deposited with great pomp not long afterwards, in the room of the remains of Mirabeau, 1 Biog. Univ. which were thrown out. Many months had not elapsed before Chénier's brother, the celebrated poet, became the victim of Marat's principles.1 Nov. 14. xxvi. 564, 565. 53. But amidst this extraordinary mixture of republican Vast public transports and individual baseness, the great measures of the Conven- the Revolution were steadily advancing, and producing tion. effects of incalculable moment and lasting effect on the measures of fortunes of France. Three of paramount importance took place during the course of the year 1793, and produced consequences which will be felt by the latest generation in that country. These were the immense levies, first of three hundred thousand, then of twelve hundred thousand men, which took place in the course of that year; the confiscation of two-thirds of the landed property in the kingdom, which arose from the decrees of the Convention against the emigrants, clergy, and persons convicted at the Revolutionary Tribunals; and the unbounded issue of assignats on the security of the national domains. These great measures, which no government could have attempted except during the fervour of a revolution, mutually, though for a brief period, upheld each other, and perpetuated the revolutionary system by the important interests which were made to depend on its continuance. The immense levy of soldiers drew off almost all the XIV. 1793. ardent and energetic spirits, and not only furnished CHAP. bread to the multitudes whom the closing of all pacific employments had deprived of subsistence, but let off in immense channels the inflamed and diseased blood of the nation; the confiscation of the land placed funds worth above £700,000,000 sterling at the disposal of the government, which they were enabled to squander with boundless profusion in the maintenance of the revolutionary regime at home, and the contest with its enemies abroad; the extraordinary issue of paper, to the amount ultimately of £350,000,000, always enabled the treasury to liquidate the demands upon it, and interested every holder of property in the kingdom in the support of the national domains, the only security on which it rested. de Cambon, During the unparalleled and almost demoniac energy pro- Moniteur, duced by the sudden operation of these powerful causes, 18th May, France was unconquerable; and it was their combined Toul. 194. Th. operation which brought it triumphant through that violent vii. 239. and unprecedented crisis.1 1 Rapport May 16. P. 973. mous ex Europe has had too much reason to become acquainted 54. with the military power developed by France during this Its enor eventful period; but the civil force, exerted by the dicta- penditure. tors within their own dominions, though less generally known, was perhaps still more remarkable. Forty-eight thousand revolutionary committees were soon established in the Republic, being one in each commune, and embracing above 500,000 members, all the most resolute and determined of the Jacobin party. Each of these individuals received three francs a-day as his wages for seeking out victims for arrest and the scaffold; and the annual charge for them was 591,000,000 francs, or nearly £24,000,000 sterling. Between the military defenders and the civil servants of the government, almost all the active and resolute men in France, and the whole of the depraved and abandoned ones, were in the pay of the dictators, and the whole starving energy of the country fed on the spoils of its defenceless opulence :-a terrible system, drawing after XIV. 1793. CHAP. it the total dissolution of society; capable of being executed only by the most audacious wickedness, but never likely, when it is attempted, of failing, for a time at least, of success. This system produced astonishing effects for a limited period, just as an individual who, in a few years, squanders a great fortune, outshines all those who live wholly on the fruits of their industry. But the inevitable 1 Châteaub. period of weakness soon arrives; the maniac who exerts Etud. Hist. his demoniac strength cannot in the end withstand the steady efforts of intelligence. The career of extravagance is in general short; bankruptcy arrests alike the waste of improvidence and the fleeting splendour which attends it.1 i. Pref. 97, 98. Hist. Parl. xxix. 45, 46. 55. issue of as effects. Cambon, the minister of finance, in August 1793, made Prodigious an important and astonishing revelation of the length to signats. Its which the issue of assignats had been carried under the Reign of Terror. The national expenses had exceeded 300,000,000 of francs, or above £12,000,000 a-month; the receipts of the treasury, during the disorder which prevailed, never reached a fourth part of that sum; and there was no mode of supplying the deficiency but by an incessant issue of paper money. The quantity in circulation on the 15th August 1793 amounted to 3,775,846,033 livres, or £151,000,000; the quantity issued since the commencement of the Revolution had been no less than 5,100,000,000 francs, or £204,000,000 sterling. This system continued during the whole Reign of Terror, and produced a total confusion of property of every sort. All the persons employed by government, both in the civil and military departments, were paid in the paper currency at par; but as it rapidly fell, from the enormous quantity in circulation, to a tenth part, and soon a twentieth of its value, the pay received was merely nominal, and those in the receipt of the largest apparent incomes were in want of the common necessaries of life. Pichegru, at the head of the army of the north, with a nominal pay of four thousand francs a-month, was in the actual receipt on the Rhine, in 1795, of only two |